


fight like you

by crystal-peridot (captaintomysky)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5692909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaintomysky/pseuds/crystal-peridot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cracked within an inch of her life, (blue) Pearl learns that her instinct to survive outweighs adherence to convention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fight like you

**Author's Note:**

> Contains descriptions of, allusion to, and fear of death. Brief reference to self harm / punishment.
> 
> [my tumblr](http://crystal-peridot.tumblr.com) / [reblog this](http://crystal-peridot.tumblr.com/post/137058616304/fight-like-you-a-blue-pearl-fic)

She dug her fingers into her palms and focused on a single point in her vision, a single flickering star on the horizon. It was a desperate attempt to hold her form together even as her chest ached and threatened to split her apart at the seams.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes. There was a certain insubordination in her unobstructed vision, but her fear of it was outweighed by her fear of this strange planet. She heard a strange, distant rumble. Some kind of monster, probably. She glanced at the broken sword on the ground. For a moment, she was seized with the urge to punish herself with it, as Blue Diamond would surely have punished her. The metal of it caught the light of the moon and glared into her eyes. It reminded her of Blue Diamond, unaffected on her throne--silent, motionless, calculating, infinitely dangerous.

White-hot pain shot through her chest again at the memory. She brought her eyes back to the flickering star. Somewhere through the ache of it, she wondered if the star was a planet, or perhaps a sun. She knew there was some way to tell from looking, but couldn't seem to call the information up. Wondering distracted her from the crack in her gem, made the throbbing hurt subside a little.

It occurred to her distantly that she should make some effort to conceal herself, that she should find some kind of shelter. She had never heard of a Pearl running before, had no idea what one might do on her own, alone like this. She'd heard enough talk of escape, but when one's only strength was beauty, what hope could there be of liberation?

She pulled the sword closer to her, though it still seemed to threaten her. She remembered how it had looked in the other Pearl's hands. She picked it up by the half-hilt, tried to remember how it had felt to hold it, tried to call back the ease with which she had caught it. On the surface of this strange planet, it no longer felt like a friend to her.

The rumble sounded again, closer. Still, she could not bring herself to move.

"Come on, Pearl, pick it back up!" The pearl's pleading voice was stuck in her head.

"I can't fight like you," she whispered, though there was no one there to hear her. "I don't even know how to run away."

And suddenly she realized she'd been foolish. She thought of the pile of drawings, thousands of stolen hours spent imagining palaces that could never exist, meticulously scaling each line against herself, against how she might feel if she could live inside of them.

"What possible use," Blue Diamond towered over her, even seated, "could the Diamond Authority possibly have for the rubbish scribblings of a delusional Pearl?"

She had opened her mouth to defend herself, but the words had caught in her throat. What could she possibly say to justify the time she'd stolen? How could she possibly deny her Diamond's judgement of her?

Even still, even in that awful moment, even as a ruby stomped on her drawings and burned them beneath her feet, even with the scorn of a crowd turned on her, some part of her had been holding naively to one, singular illusion: that there was some version of herself somewhere whose form did not ache on the edge of collapse, who was not afraid, who did not have reason to be. Inside the buildings she'd created there had been a small, fragile hope that she might someday find that place.

And perhaps it was this yearning that had gotten her into this mess, somehow. Perhaps it was this yearning that the renegade pearl had seen, had sensed inside of her. Perhaps that was why she had thrown her the sword. Perhaps that was why her own hand's first response was to reach up and catch it, by the hilt, as if she were a fighter.

But all that existed beyond the Diamond Authority was this: a broken sword, a rumbling sky. All that catching the sword had earned her was the humming landscape of this inhospitable, alien planet. The fauna rustled above her, an unfamiliar creature flew over her head.

Her last moments on the sky arena were slowly returning to her--the falling bits of glass, no,  _ gem _ , the ruby about to hold her down for Blue Diamond to break, instead glittering around her. She'd swung the sword blindly, she hadn't meant to--

She remembered the surprise on the ruby's face. Probably, she wasn't expecting her to fight back, wasn't expecting the sword to strike where she was most vulnerable.

Pearl dropped the sword when the ruby disintegrated into nothing, into a few broken pieces of crystal on the ground. She shook, fell to her knees.

"I didn't mean to--" she choked out. She stared at the ground in front of her. The shards. The sword.

"Come on, Pearl, pick it back up!"

"I'm sorry," she whispered. She pushed herself to her feet, backed away--there was no sword, nothing broken, not if she got far enough from what she'd done. 

The Pearl kicked the sword to her, shouted something that sounded like  _ please, I know you can,  _ or maybe the voice was the tiny, instinctual part of her that still wanted to live. She thought how well this sword fit in the hands of another Pearl when her hand closed around the hilt for a second time. Three amethysts were approaching her from the front. She could feel how easy it would be to swing again, to  _ aim _ this time, but instead she continued her tiny steps backwards. She held the sword in front of her in two shaking hands, as if it would deter the amethysts from hurting her.

"I don't want to--" she choked out. She didn't know how to finish the thought. She didn't want to fight. She didn't want to die.

She could feel the edge of the arena approaching behind her, sense it in the way the wind stirred her hair. She clung to the sword as if it could save her.

An amethyst spoke.

"Hey, now," she said. "Why don't you put that sword down? We both know it's not in you to fight."

That was all it took. The sword fell limply at her side, she was stepping backward still, she dropped it, it slid over the ledge and fell to earth.

The Amethyst grabbed her by the front. Her feet left the ground. One of them dug something sharp into her gem, bits of her fell to the ground, and she kicked out, hard. She felt the Amethyst let go, she stumbled backwards, she fell.

She didn't remember hitting the earth. She looked around her, again, at the unfamiliar foliage of the planet's unsettlingly green landscape. "How'd you land yourself here, Pearl?" She asked aloud. There was no response.

She stood shakily, sword in one hand. She felt the crack in her gem expand with the movement. She'd escaped Blue Diamond, but death still loomed over her. She looked down at her gem. She didn't understand why surviving had to be so hard.

_ Please, I know you can. _ The renegade Pearl may as well have been standing in front of her, holding out a sword or a hand.  _ Please.  _

She began to walk.


End file.
